Literature / Peter and the Starcatchers

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The Peter and the Starcatchers saga, written by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, is a series of fantasy novels; starting out as prequels to Sir J.M Barrie's Peter Pan, but gradually deviating from its plot. The series contains four books:

Peter and the Starcatchers

Peter and the Shadow Thieves

Peter and the Secret of Rundoon

Peter and the Sword of Mercy

A new series in the same universe of Peter and the Starcatchers begins with the book The Bridge to Neverland.

Fish out of Temporal Water: Hook in The Sword of Mercy when he and his crew leave the island for the first time in twenty years. The first thing they do is attempt to attack a steam ship, only to realize that it can crush their wooden sailing ship without even noticing.

Greater-Scope Villain: Lord Ombra's masters, revealed to be the very forces of darkness and entropy with the goal to destroy the entire universe.

Green Rocks: Starstuff can do just about anything. For starters, it can make things fly, change peoples' moods, heal wounds, extend life, and transform ordinary animals into mythological creatures. And it's hinted that it has other powers as well; Molly comments that the Greek gods were actually humans using starstuff, and it's hard to imagine their reputation came from long lives and flight alone.

Gunship Rescue: In Secret of Rundoon, George and the orphan boys pilot a flying boat to attack King Zarboff's palace just before the rocket launch.

Just Between You and Me: This happens pretty much every time The Others capture one of the good guys. In the third book, Ombra admits he just wants to see Leonard's reaction once he knows what's really going on.

Mad Scientist: Dr. Glotz, the evil scientist who devises a plan to force large quantities of starstuff to fall. He knows that if it is successful, it will ultimately destroy the entire universe, but he will be content in his knowledge, just before it happens, that his theory was right.

No Man Should Have This Power: The attitude of the Starcatchers towards starstuff; their efforts are concentrated on sending it back where it came from every time some of it falls to earth. It's eventually revealed that they have far worse to fear than mere men getting their hands on it...

The Noseless: Nerezza lost his nose in a battle and wears a fake one over the hole, which he removes whenever he wants to smell something. The larger aperture seems to have enhanced his sense of smell.

Running Gag: You know that whenever Peter translates Tinker Bell's speech for someone, that's not what she said...

Stealth Pun: In the third book, George and the orphans steal a ship, which later ends up flying after being inundated with starstuff. The name of the vessel is De Vliegen, which means "the flies" in Dutch. In other words, it's a flying Dutchman.

Trilogy Creep: Originally the book started as a trilogy, and then came Sword of Mercy, acting as a full fledged prequel to the events of Peter Pan.

Two-Part Trilogy: The first work can actually stand by itself, acting as an introduction with the major plot points (of that book) more or less resolved. Around Shadow Thieves, the series starts to blend together into a bigger story arc.

Unobtanium: The starstuff is seen as this by the Others. The Starcatchers believe it to be too dangerous to actually use, except in very small amounts in emergencies, and spend most of their efforts to send it back into space so it can't be used.

The Watson: Peter. There's a whole chapter where Molly goes on a Character Filibuster to tell him all about starstuff and the history of the Starcatchers, and another bit where Fighting Prawn explains Mr. Grin's origin story to him.

Those Magnificent Flying Machines: Wendy's Uncle Neville has built an ornithopter, which after a rocky first test is able to fly reasonably well. Wendy steals it and uses it to fly to Never-Land.

You Said You Would Let Them Go: In the third book, after Peter locates the starstuff. Zarboff decides to feed the boys to the snake anyway—he only promised that if Peter didn't do as he was instructed, he would feed them to the snake. He didn't say anything about not feeding them to the snake if he did follow the instructions.

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